Sometimes, while we are so busy living our lives in the comfortable surroundings; we forget to look at the diversity of life around us. We are so deeply into our comforts, that we start building walls around us. The walls of intimidation! When all of a sudden our attention is diverted to the diversity of life that exists around us, our first reaction is that of intimidation. The intimidation of unknown, the intimidation of unheard, the intimidation of unseen; so on and so forth!

“Laela! Don’t talk to children on the roadside, baby. They can be dangerous too. Don’t shake hands with them. They are so shabby.”

“Laela, you don’t have to touch the street dogs. They are dirty. You will catch germs, doll.”

“Laela, this is a big bad world. You have to be extra conscious about your safety, sweetheart. Do not take the bus. I will send the car for you.”

This is how Laela grew up; in extremely safe and comfortable surroundings created by her mother. At seventeen, Laela was not allowed to travel by the public transport; she was not allowed to make friends outside of her own class; she was not allowed to do street shopping; she was not even allowed to eat charts and panipuris on the roadside (Sad but true! Adventure was a word unheard of for our dear Laela!). Laela lived in a world of shiny mirrors, polished floors, glossy make-up and overly dressed up people. (Each day, her palette was served with the best tasting food; but, sadly, the taste of being raw was something our dear Laela could never experience!)

Laela was engrossed in her comfortable life so very keenly. She was sailing in a sea free of tides; her journey was smooth and unhindered, but, most of all boring! (What is life after all without a roller coaster ride once in a while?)

****

There was a lot of happiness all around. Laela’s cousin Amni had given birth to a baby daughter. Both Laela and her mother had come to Chandigarh to meet Amni and the little baby girl. Laela instantly fell in love with the baby. She couldn’t have enough of the pampering of the little baby. So, she decided to stay with Amni for one more day, though, Laela’s mother was to leave. Laela insisted on staying. So, Amni told her mother that she would arrange a taxi to Delhi of one of her known for Laela the next day. On Amni’s reassurance, her mother allowed Laela to stay.

****

Where is the tag? The babies are supposed to have tags right? The rich baby, the poor baby, the shabby baby, the ugly baby, the beautiful baby, the fat baby, the dirty baby, the classy baby, the roadside baby, the dangerous baby, and many more like that. No? Then how do they get tagged once they start growing up with so many labels to their identity. Eh! No! It’s not what Laela is thinking at the moment. She is rather busy in figuring out a suitable name for the baby girl.

The maid entered into Laela’s room with her morning tea and woke her up. After the breakfast, Amni called the taxi of one of her known driver for Laela. Laela kissed the baby girl and headed out for Delhi in the taxi. The taxi had hardly reached till Ambala, when the engine gave up. The driver kept fidgeting with the engine for some time, however, in the end he gave a disappointed look and gave up. He told Laela that he will arrange another taxi for her, since it may take a while to set the engine right. He regretted her inconvenience and immediately picked his phone to dial a number of another taxi. Before that, however, a Volvo just passed by and surprisingly it stopped when Laela gave it a hand in an impulse. The driver encouraged her to rather board the bus and Laela got into the bus with a little apprehension.

****

 Laela was not used to travelling in public transport was another thing, the first being she had never ever been in a bus before! (Oh Yes! No kidding here! Even after seventeen years of her life, a bus was as alien to this dainty, sophisticated girl as a private jet must be to a beggar). Laela looked around awkwardly and seated herself in one of the back-seats. To her right were two male passengers, one of whom was apparently a south Indian. To her left, one seat was vacant, next to which another male passenger was sitting on the window seat. Laela kept her bag on the empty seat and tried to look comfortable while scanning the bus in a quick look. In the seat right in front of her, two ladies were sitting on each side of the aisle. The ladies were dressed in some familiar brands of clothes. (Ya! More than the people, the known brands gave her momentary comfort at that time!) Since Laela was sitting at the last seat, she could not look much ahead than four or five seats from the last. When the conductor came up to her for the ticket, she noticed the male passenger sitting next to her doing some gestures with his hands. The conductor was also gesturing at him. The conductor gave Laela her ticket to Delhi while she kept looking stealthily at the two of them. “Laela! Don’t take the bus, baby.” Her mother’s words were swinging back and forth in her head now. The conductor went ahead; however, the guy next to her was now gesturing to the ladies sitting in the next seat. Laela could sense an air of mystery and vile intentions all around her. She felt one of the ladies was pointing a finger at her, but she immediately turned her eyes away. Laela was now hell frightened. There was some big conspiracy going on and she had unluckily become a victim of it. All the people around her were talking to each other in some secret code language. Laela could not understand anything from the fast movement of their hands, but her heart skipped a beat or two when a finger suddenly turned to point at her. Laela’s face was turning pale. Her fears started overwhelming her when she saw the conductor exchanging money with one of the man on two or three seats ahead. Something was fishy about the whole thing.

Laela started putting the pieces together. The man at the back-seat was surely their leader. And they had chosen her to be their victim. Probably this was a new kind of technique to trap people. This group had got together in a bus so that no one would dare doubt a bus to be full of all the misshapen people who actually operate in a mutually closed group. But what might be the plan of these people? Looting her? Kidnapping her and extortion of money? Or still worse? (Her mother had been so right about the world not being a kind place after all!) If she had travelled by a taxi, she would have been saved of the unknown. Oh Shit! They might be planning to sell her or force her into prostitution or begging! It must be a big bloody nasty gang with a wide spread network. Would the ladies of the gang would turn soft if she asked for help? But No! May be the ladies themselves are the big daddies of the gang. There might be a possibility that they were led into this profession by force; May be they would turn soft. But again, if they are willfully into such shitty disposition, then there is no escape once they get to know about Laela’s intentions of escaping. These people might have weapons as well. If she creates a lot of hullaballoo, they might even kill her. Laela wanted to call her mother right away! But she could not do that in their presence. A message! Oh No! There had been no signal on her phone. There were definitely bloody jammers inside the bus.

Damn this bus! Laela was feeling badly trapped. Suddenly, the world was spinning around her. She thought they might have given her chloroform. Yes! Chloroform it could be! Slowly, Laela drifted off to sleep.

****

When Laela regained her consciousness the south indian sitting next to her was right above her face muttering something. While the other guy, apparently the leader of the gang, was splashing drops of water on her face. He was also gesturing to the conductor and explaining something. Laela opened her eyes and the south Indian immediately spoke up, “Ma’am, Are you fine now? Please, Have some water.” He suddenly seemed a nicer man than she had initially thought. She took the water bottle and enquired about the man gesturing to the conductor, “Why is this man talking in gestures. I mean, why everyone here in this bus is talking so secretively?” The south Indian man gave her a strange look and said in a mocking way, “Because, these people in this bus are deaf and dumb, Ma’am! He is just telling the conductor to arrange a seat in the front rows for you since you are feeling unwell and nauseated." Laela pressed her tongue in between her teeth and immediately regretted her insensitive thoughts of the conspiracy she was actually hitching in her mind. "But, why? I mean all of them?" "Yes, ma’am! Except a few on the front rows." Laela was at once stupefied, embarrassed and regretful of her insensitive and inconsiderate nature. She felt self-loathing on being such a jerk and getting intimidated when there was not the slightest reason to be so. But she was still curious how so many of those people, who were physically challenged in the same way, boarded the same bus. "How? I mean, all of them on the same bus that is quite a co-incidence! Isn't it?" "Well! The ones on the last six rows, Ma'am. Actually I am the director of an institute which we run for the deaf and dumb people. All these people here are my staff members. We are all like a big family. Actually, we had a conference here in Chandigarh. Now we are heading back to Delhi." Just then the conductor angled at Laela to take the front seat. "Nice journey, Ma'am!"

****

As Laela walked down the aisle towards the front seat, her mind was occupied with infinitely many thoughts. But a few forced her to re-think and be more open and receptive towards life....

Not every place is unsafe, not every stranger has bad intentions, not every bus driver is a rapist, not every curious thing is suspicious, not every shabby looking person is dangerous, not every person interested in your whereabouts is eyeing you in a bad way, not every person roaming on the street is a rogue waiting to rob you. Every system has its loopholes. The world is a big and a diverse place. There is as much good as there is evil. To judge a book by its cover is doing injustice to it. Crimes do not necessarily occur in the hour of darkness in a filthy surrounding, they might occur in the broad daylight in the most sophisticated surrounding as well.

To experience life fully, it is important that we shed our inhibitions and come out of our walls of safety.

It's important that we stop being intimidated by the unknown, unseen or unheard; and rather delve deeper into the world of unexplored. Explore, grow; Be rich in experiences, Be rich in the soul. It's not the external surrounding that intimidate us, it's rather the internal self which intimidates us; the coward self, the limited self, the lesser self.

All we need to do is to come out of the walls of our own creating and experience ourselves. Celebrate the innermost self; each and every layer of self. Celebrate life in all colors and all shapes, rather than getting intimidated by the unknown details.

P.S.

Though it is true that India has been witnessing increased crime rate lately; every day we get to hear about some or the other unfortunate incident a woman became a victim of. But the point here that I want to bring to light through the medium of this short jibe at the modern society is that despite of all the evil that is present, there is goodness and hope too. All the while, when we are talking about all that is going wrong; we are actually forgetting to look at the brighter side. Just because there is darkness, does not mean that there is no light. We need to have a look at the brighter side and teach our daughters to do the same. We cannot and should not teach them to live a life of intimidation. We should instill confidence and positivity in them rather than instilling a constant fear of being vulnerable.

The world is as much theirs to explore as that of the men. So let the unhindered spirit of women always be alive!